The Quiet Thing You Left Behind

The Quiet Thing You Left Behind

By Lola Dam

After you left, the apartment didn’t feel empty—just uneven. Like something essential had shifted to one side and everything else was trying not to tip over.

You didn’t take much. A suitcase, a stack of books, the blue sweater you used to wear when it rained. The rest remained.

Your toothbrush.

A mug with a hairline crack.

The echo of your footsteps in the hall at 2 a.m.

I didn’t pack up your things. I didn’t box or label or clean. I just let them sit—like they were still deciding whether or not you were really gone.

For a while, I lived around them. Brushed my teeth beside yours. Drank from the other mug. Opened the wardrobe and pretended not to see your shirts, shoulders still in them somehow.

What surprised me most was the sound. Or the absence of it.

You had always been quiet. But it was a kind of soft noise—humming when you cooked, your fingers tapping the table as you read, your breath when you leaned your head against the window.

After you left, the silence didn’t fall like a blanket. It perched on things. Sitting in corners. Waited.

One day, I opened the kitchen drawer and found your shopping list. Still folded. Still yours.

Rice

Ginger

The good yogurt

Toothpaste

Maybe peaches if they’re ripe

I left it there. I still don’t know why.

A friend came over a week later. They sat on the couch like it hadn’t belonged to the shape of your body. Like the cushions didn’t know the exact way you folded into sleep.

They said, “You should get rid of some of this. It’ll help.”

I nodded. But after they left, I sat on the floor and pulled your jacket over my knees. It still smelt like outside. Like the wind and a little bit of citrus.

There was a note in the pocket. One of yours.

You used to write them to yourself. Tiny thoughts on scraps of paper:

“Make room for light.”

“Don’t forget the lemon tree in the alley.”

“Not everything broken needs fixing.”

This one said;

“The quietest things are often the ones that stay.”

I didn’t cry. I just folded it again, like folding could make it less real.

Over time, the unevenness became a kind of rhythm.

I started talking out loud, not to you, but around you. A comment to the room. A question in the air. I didn’t expect answers.

I moved your books to the shelf you never liked. I wore your socks when mine were all in the wash. I let the silence become part of the décor—like the rug or the chipped paint in the corner of the hallway.

One morning, I found the wind chime you bought last spring. Still in its paper bag, tucked behind the broom cupboard. You had wanted to hang it from the fire escape.

I climbed out there and tied it to the railing.

It made the gentlest sound.

Like breath.

Like memory brushing against the edge of now.

That night, I dreamed we sat on the floor eating noodles straight from the pot. You were wearing that rain sweater, even though it wasn’t raining. I asked why you left. You didn’t answer. You just handed me a peach.

When I woke up, I couldn’t tell if it was grief or comfort. Maybe both.

Some days I think you left because you had to. Other days, I think you left because you thought I’d be okay. Maybe you were right.

Not in a simple way. Not in a moved-on, healed, happily-ever-after way. But in a way that makes room for absence. In a way that lets the quiet be part of the music.

I’ve started sleeping on your side of the bed.

Not because I want to forget.

Because I want to remember that I can.

Your mug is still in the cupboard.

Your shirt is still draped over the chair.

Still the list in the drawer.

Still, the chime sings on breezy days.

But the sharpness has dulled. The ache now carries something else.

Something like gratitude.

Something like air.